On summer vacation

Get out the sunscreen, beach chair and the trashy novels! I will be taking a break from blogging for the summer. Expect maybe one post a week from me, hopefully every Monday. (Psst: put this blog in a reader if you don’t wanna miss anything.)

Of course I realize this is a bad time to quit the blah-blah if you might be in the beginning stages of making your own masonry oven, making your own cheese or making your own booze, as these are all things that are happening in real time at this little farm. Having one’s own backyard greenhouse, chicken coop, and vegetable garden: continue to consider me your biggest cheerleader! Really, shortening the food supply chain to “you” and “yard” means lightening your carbon footprint considerably…and it’s fun. Trust me on this.

I will leave you with a few favorites from the (yipes! 900-odd post deep) catalog. As ever, if there’s something you wish to learn about I have probably covered it in some form or another so make good use of the “Search” box up above. Make free use of my email as well as I do love hearing from you and am more than happy to answer any burning questions you might have. But otherwise, have a fun summer!

it never ceases to amaze me how often you post – and interesting or funny or info-filled post at that. Still… one post a week is hardly a vacation (some of us post once a week if we can get around to it).

I hope you do post at least weekly, I’d miss it if you didn’t and I’d spend time wondering how you and your adorable child were doing and what you were up to. But if you don’t then there is something to look forward to and meanwhile, I will be looking at my artichokes and telling them all about how you and your daughter were picking them and how big yours were and how you live in Michigan and for pete’s sake, mine are in the South, in the warm, and should be thriving.

I’m seconding (thirding, fourthing?) the have a great summer sentiments.

And I also have to agree with Kelly above… your blog was one of the first that I stumbled across when I was starting my foray into breaking with mother culture, and you’re a constant source of inspiration. And envy – what with the goats and chickens and this that and the other thing that you constantly seem to be doing! But thank you, for being so dedicated and taking us along!

I love Kelly’s comment and good for you for taking a summer break. Last year I was so busy that between what I did and trying to blog about it I never got to kick back. This summer I intend to do more kicking back somehow. You are smart. :p I just wish you lived closer so we could swap some things.

My neighbors six year old daughter has baby ducks at her school and one now looks like it may have a broken leg.Is there a way to treat a broken leg on a hatchling or will it heal itself.They are watching it for the weekend in it’s little pen w/heat lamp and I for one don’t know how they can tell it’s broken or not.Just asking any duck raisers out there.

Hi Sylvie, why, thank you. And yeah, now even once a week sounds like work…but old habits die hard, you know. I am so jealous that you and Ed hooked up. How fun to meet people in the flesh!

Thanks Paula. So far so good!

Jules, he’s on my list. Strawberries are ripe and cherries not far behind; it’s an early year for everything.

Sara, yeah, even without the blog thing I seem to just fill that time with other activities. However it is looking like a fun summer all around as we have no activities set up for our daughter except horseback riding. And: the oven is finished!!!

Thanks, John. I hope you found out what to do with that duckling’s leg; I would think splints would work. Some animals can adapt to these changes though and the duckling might pull through and just be kind of wobbly.

Ah Kelly, thanks so much. It’s sometimes hard knowing if your words have any effect. Sure they do at home but that’s because I am yelling! But on the blog, well…I just don’t know. I am beyond happy to hear though that you’ve done so much! (yay! a convert!)

Peter, well, my experience is this: they LIKE big rootstocks and like going through the winter without dying right back down to the ground. If at least a few leaves can make it through then you’ll get more than one measly artichoke for your troubles. SO you can do this: plant them in huge pots and bring them in where it won’t freeze solid (I do the same for our fig trees) or…get a greenhouse and don’t do a thing to them.

Hi Suzanne. It’s a rather beautiful sight driving by fields of them in California. They get to be huge plants, like 6′ around. Of course they’re pretty here too but it’s amazing to see them at that scale.

Dakota, yes, well, one step at a time! And congratulations! When we moved here 5 years ago I had an infant and only had a garden and really had no ambitions to be self-sufficient in anything but maybe tomatoes and grape jam. Things, they do change, but it’s baby steps all along the way. Glad to hear I can help!

Annette, ditto. I surely think the barter system is fabulous…the shared-work thing too of making jams or sauces or even weeding a garden is also wonderfully communally enriching…looks like we’ll just have to settle for the blog world though! But do, do think about the day to day as well as the big picture, and make sure your needs are in there as a high priority.

Pamela, indeed I will…and you too! Summer is always a fun time of year and I hope to make this one even moreso.

Welcome!

Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.

Wisdom from the sage

Wendell Berry:

"We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it."
--from an essay in "The Long-Legged House"

"The word agriculture, after all, does not mean "agriscience," much less "agribusiness." It means "cultivation of land." And cultivation is at the root of the sense both of culture and of cult. The ideas of tillage and worship are thus joined in culture. And these words all come from an Indo-European root meaning both "to revolve" and "to dwell." To live, to survive on the earth, to care for the soil, and to worship, all are bound at the root to the idea of a cycle. It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term "agribusiness."

"Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating."
--both the above are from essays in "The Art of the Commonplace: Agrarian Essays"

Search for:

Is this so hard to believe?

"An atheist is just somebody who feels about Yahweh the way any decent Christian feels about Thor, or Ba'al, or The Golden Calf. As has been said before, we are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further," Richard Dawkins, 2002.